Issa, third from the left above, denies using
federal pork to pad his personal wealth
Darrell Issa, the Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee (which is supposed to investigate government corruption), is helping himself by helping his district:
He has secured millions of dollars in Congressional earmarks for road work and public works projects that promise improved traffic and other benefits to the many commercial properties he owns here north of San Diego. In one case, more than $800,000 in earmarks he arranged will help widen a busy thoroughfare in front of a medical plaza he bought for $10.3 million. [...] Indeed, more than two dozen of Mr. Issa’s properties are within five miles of projects he has personally earmarked for road work, sanitation and other improvements, an analysis by The Times shows.
His medical complex, for instance, sits directly along West Vista Way, a busy corridor scheduled for widening with $815,000 in funds Mr. Issa earmarked. The congressman bought the complex in 2008, soon after securing the first of two earmarks for the two-mile project and unsuccessfully seeking millions more. The assessor’s office now values the complex at $16 million, a 60 percent appreciation.
Mr. Issa owns a number of commercial properties near the planned $171 million expansion of State Route 76. The project, intended to ease traffic for tens of thousands of commuters, was helped by $245,000 in his earmarks.
So here's a challenge for tea partiers: you love nothing more than claiming that you're not a Republican front group. You say the one and only thing that matters to you is stopping wasteful and crooked spending. So here's your opportunity to prove it. Demand that House Republicans remove Darrell Issa from the oversight committee and challenge him in the primary. And if you don't beat him in the primary, support his Democratic opponent. Of course, none of that's going to happen, because teapartiers are Republicans. And the only kind of spending they want to stop is spending that goes to people that aren't like them.
